Never allow yourself to be distracted!
The moral to this story. I had a small window of time yesterday. I thought I could frame up the left wing panels quickly after already making the right panels.
I laid up the shear web and supporting spruce spar and started laying in the ribs. I’m building away and as I get to the lower pre-marked rib placement lower sheeting I notice that the marks were on the wrong side and not facing up. In my dumb mind I thought they must of gave me two of the same kind and flipped it over and glued it to the ribs. Mary called me because the mailman was at the shop to pick up outgoing orders. As I ran down the stairs I was thinking how well I had done framing up the panel so quickly. Then it hit me. I got that sinking sick feeling. That’s right, I built two right panels!
Never in my 37 years of building model airplanes had I ever done such a dumb thing. I’ve heard of it, even been warned about it in the instructions. These very instructions! But that’s what I had done.
I gave the mail pickup all the outgoing packages and quickly ran back up the stairs. There it was, a disaster.
I thought of all the things I might do but none of them seemed viable. So I took a hobby knife, took a deep breath and let it out. I then proceeded to do the impossible. Cut free every last rib and part I had glued together. To my amazement I did it without damaging the parts too badly. Nothing a little sanding and glue couldn’t fix. I sanded everything a bit to clean the parts up and started re-building. This time I built a left panel.
The picture tells the story. It can be done. My new found patience saved me the cost of another kit. As it was, this kit cost me nearly 300 dollars and was shipped from the UK. So I would have been out a lot of cash and a long wait. Never say never because it can be done. You just need to take that breathe and think clearly.
The parts unbuilt are for the outboard left wing tip. Luck for me I didn’t frame them up before I discovered my error.
The Art of Steve Neill 